Migration is considered primarily a matter of individual national policy and national membership as the most sovereign of state functions. Yet today, more than 175 million people live outside their place of birth. Jan O. Karlsson, co-chair of the United Nations Global Commission on International Migration, discussed this growing policy issue and the necessity of balancing the interests of migrants and governmental concerns, in a Jan. 18 lecture hosted by President Lee C. Bollinger. Karlsson -- who is also the former Swedish minister of development cooperation, migration and asylum policy, and former acting minister of foreign affairs – stressed the need for increased international cooperation among these migrants and the countries they exit, transit or settle.